Sony XBR-55A8F OLED TV Review

John Archer
, ContributorOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Sony’s debut A1E OLED TVs (reviewed here) were nothing if not distinctive. From their unique ‘lean back’ easel-like design to the way they used the actual surface of their screen to deliver their sound, they exuded high-end sophistication and originality from every pore.

Sony’s follow up OLED TVs, by comparison, seem much keener to fit into the crowd. As represented here by the 55-inch XBR-55A8F (KD-55AF8 in Europe), they appear to be focused on essentially giving us a repeat performance of the A1Es picture and sound quality from a more conventional looking chassis. Why? Actually, that’s a pretty good question…

Given that they’re more or less identical in screen specification and features, I’d expected that the A8F series would sell for less than the ‘designer’ A1Es (A1s in Europe). However, at the time of writing, the 55A8F is listed on Sony’s website at $2,800, while the 55A1E is just $2,500. And there’s an even bigger price gap in the A1E’s favor when you move up to the 65-inch screen size.

European pricing is, inexplicably, completely different. The 55-inch A8F and A1E models cost more or less the same as each other, while the 65-inch AF8 is actually £300 cheaper than the 65-inch A1!

In the US at least, though, the current pricing situation means that really the main raison d’etre for the A8F series is that they provide a more straightforward design option for people who don’t like the A1E range’s angled-back screen and/or want to hang their TV on the wall.

Different by design

The 55A8F certainly does look different to the A1Es. Its screen sits very low on a relatively conventional desktop stand, and its rear is a more conventional combination of ultra-thin edges and a chunkier mid section hosting the TV’s connections and processing.

This ‘chunky bit’ covers quite a bit more of the rear than we see with many rival OLED TVs. However, the 55A8F still doesn’t stick out far from your wall if you decide to go the wall-hanging route. It also makes clever use of plastic covers and cable channeling to keep its rear as tidy as possible.

Photo: Sony

The Sony A8F (AF8) OLED TV.

The chunky section of the rear also joins the support ‘leg’ of the A1E models in carrying a woofer for adding bass to the stereo sound produced by the A8F’s screen.

The 55A8F also follows the A1E’s lead with its ultra-narrow bezel. Aside from a tiny silver trim, there’s hardly anything to remind you that there’s actually a frame wrapped around the 55A8F’s pictures. In this respect the 55A8F follows Sony’s desire to have you focus on the pictures you’re watching, not the hardware that’s producing them.

Same difference

Aside from its design and marginally different audio configuration, the 55A8F really doesn’t offer any major differences to its predecessor. Connections comprise the same four HDMIs (two ‘enhanced’ for full bandwidth 4K HDR feeds), three USBs and both hard-wired and Ethernet Wi-Fi options. The internal processor is the same (Sony’s X1 Extreme platform). And so far as I can tell, the panel at the 55A8F’s heart is the same, too.

Certainly Sony suggested that this was the case when it launched the A8F models at the CES in January, and my measurements of its brightness and input lag yielded essentially the same results that I got from the A1E. That’s a peak brightness of marginally over 700 nits on a 10% white HDR window when using its Standard HDR picture preset, and closer to 640nits with the other preset options; plus around 48ms of input lag when HD gaming, or around 30ms when 4K gaming (provided you’ve selected the TV’s Game mode).

These numbers do not stack up particularly well against other premium 2018 TVs I’ve looked at so far. Samsung’s Q9FN models (reviewed here) deliver peak brightness on the same white HDR window of around 2000 nits, while LG’s new E8 OLED TVs (reviewed here) deliver around 820 nits. And both the LG and Samsung newcomers suffer less than 20ms of input lag in their Game modes.

Photo: Sony

Rear view of the Sony A8F OLED TV.

The potential ace up the 55A8F’s sleeve, though, could be its X1 Extreme processing system. This, together with careful in-factory calibration of all Sony’s OLED TVs, certainly helped the A1Es stand out from the crowd. So there’s no reason to suspect that won’t be the case again with the 55A8F.

Dumb smarts

Before confirming that, though, I need to spare a (harsh) word for the 55A8F’s operating system. For as well as persisting with essentially the same horribly laid out and ‘squishy’ remote control Sony has bizarrely persevered with for generations now, the 55A8F also continues Sony’s relationship with Android TV. Right down to the same overbearing menus, confusing navigation paths, and lack of customization options. Worst of all, having to power Android TV causes both the 55A8F’s smart and basic control menus to run painfully sluggishly at times.

The 55A8F is using Android 7 right now, but Sony is saying it will update the set to Android 8.0 in due course.

The 55A8F’s pictures appear to be more or less dead ringers for those of the A1E models. Which is good news in lots of ways, but bad news in one pretty important one.

The good stuff centers on the frankly stunning control and precision exerted over the image by Sony’s X1 Extreme picture processing system. There’s hardly any element of the picture with any source that doesn’t look beautifully refined.

Photo: Sony

The Sony A8F OLED TV in a slightly peculiar living room.

Video noise, for instance, is essentially non-existent. There’s no trace of the slightly grainy look bright, richly colored HDR images can still exhibit on LG’s 2018 OLED TVs. The screen’s near-perfect black levels (this is an OLED TV, after all) appear completely free of the gentle fizzing noise and occasional grey blocking artefacts also still found on LG’s much-improved 2018 OLEDs.